Dear Trish
Dear Trish,
It was so annoying how Marlee slid on her jeans, buttoned them easily, and pulled a cream-colored, cable-knit sweater over her head, ready to party. She didn’t wonder if the pants were too tight, if they made her look fat, if the shirt covered the soft rolls of her stomach. She didn’t have to wonder about any of that because she was thin. Maybe if she hadn’t been so annoyingly thin you wouldn’t have called Mom an hour later telling her you wanted to withdraw from college.
But it wasn’t just Marlee and her perfect, party-ready outfit, or the fact that the two of you ended up as roommates. It was so much more. You were in your second semester of academic probation and sinking fast. You felt like the only girl without a boyfriend because the boys you made out with weren’t interested in anything more. You pretended you’d signed up for the big spring break trip to Mazatlán, but you knew Mom couldn’t afford it. In fact, the closest you got to Mexico was shop lifting SlimFast, when your friends all bought it, to get bikini ready for the trip. Everything felt hard and impossible.
It wasn’t long before Shelly and Jill, your two best friends, came looking for you, ready to hit the party they said was already raging. You planned to wear your standard-issue, straight-leg, black jeans with the oversized black turtleneck. But that plan changed when you couldn’t zip them up, even after you laid on the floor and sucked your stomach in to the point of breathlessness. You’d noticed them getting tighter, but blamed it on the sorority house dryer, not the late-night trips the bin food at the supermarket, or the egg rolls you stuffed in your mouth in Jill’s backseat on the way home. It wasn’t the midnight delivered, pizza-sized, chocolate chip cookies from Old Chicago’s. On most days, the jeans episode would have sent you into a fit of desperation and a puddle of tears, but not on this night. Not only was there no time for drama, but there was also no will. Just as the zipper gave way to the flesh of your belly, you surrendered. You couldn’t do any of it anymore. You called Mom. It was two hours earlier in California, she would be home from the office, probably smoking a cigarette as she changed out of her work clothes before she went back downstairs to pour a glass of chardonnay on ice. You had a sneaking feeling she’d be game for your plan because when you, the baby, the youngest of her five kids, went off to college a year ago, it left her alone. She lived in the beach house, the only thing of value Dad left her when he died of alcoholism four years earlier. She never liked the beach house but decided to give up her L.A. apartment to save money (out-of-state college tuition was expensive) and live in it until it sold. The house itself was on the bayfront, blocks from beach paradise. But all was lost on her now that she was over an hour away from her children and friends. Being there by herself was a challenge, and you knew that could work to your advantage. She listened quietly as you explained how hopeless you felt. You told her you wanted to withdraw from school (tuition refund!), come home and transfer to UCLA or USC for the following Fall semester. You couldn’t make it work in Colorado and you needed a fresh start. To your surprise, and to her credit, she said she understood your unhappiness but wasn’t sure pulling the plug mid-semester was the solution. She wanted you to think on it for a day and asked that you call her back. You agreed, but your mind was already made. You peeled the too-tight jeans off and slipped into the grey, drop-waist t-shirt dress. The literal and metaphorical relief made you feel ten pounds lighter. But what if you had followed Mom’s suggestion? What if you had taken the time to consider what you proposed and how it might affect you? There was freedom in unburdening yourself, but it would come at a price.
The two weeks it took to sort out withdrawal from the university, pack and ship your stuff home, and say good-bye to your friends surprised you. You hadn’t known how loved you were. Everyone made a point of letting you know how much you would be missed. The sorority “House Mom” was sincerely sad when she heard your news. She told you she would miss your bright, shining light and said you were a ray of sunshine. Jill and Shelly begged you not to go. Jill’s boyfriend, in an effort to understand your decision, simply said, “You’re a popular girl in our fraternity, why would you want to leave?” These compliments comforted you, and you enjoyed the attention. You enjoyed the freedom that came from not worrying about classes and papers and studying. You didn’t even feel the need to compare yourself to anyone who seemed thinner, smarter, or happier. Then came the day you had to go.
Ten of your closest friends took you to Denny’s for breakfast before Jill and Shelly dropped you off at the airport. The three of you cried as you stood on the curb amidst your two enormous suitcases and carry-on bags. They loved you and wished you could stay. You half-wished the same. You watched the red Jetta pull into the flow of traffic and out of the airport. Back to school. Back to the sorority. To homework. To parties. To binge trips to the market. To laughter. To friendship. If there was even a moment of wondering if you made a mistake, you quickly brushed it aside, because you needed to pull yourself together.
Mom set out conditions for your return: you had to immediately enroll in community college and get a part time job. Both reasonable requests. So, within a couple weeks you signed up for four classes at the local community college. And, as luck would have it, you worked with Mom at her office where she got you a part time administrative assistant job. You presumed your inner academic would emerge once you went to school without the distractions of friends, a sorority, and social life, but you were the same student in a different location. Boredom did not motivate you to study. It moved you to mindless eating and accentuated the low-grade humiliation that seeped into every area of your life.
You framed leaving school as a positive step, a near-escape from the quicksand. Others saw it differently. Everyone wanted to know, “What are you going to do now?” You rattled off the same answer over and over: a concurrent enrollment plan that would land you at USC or UCLA after you finished your gen-eds. It sounded good, but it was a fantasy. Your brother-in-law asked what you thought caused your breakdown. And your brother, while sympathetic, wondered why you couldn’t have stuck it out for nine more weeks. Nine weeks was not a long time, he reminded you. He offered a different perspective, one where you buckled down and soldiered through the end of the semester. An outcome, he said, that would likely have made you feel better about yourself and left you with more options. He had a point. You lost credits transferring. The community college courses paled in comparison to the university you left. And you ended up carpooling with Mom to your part time job in an office filled with perfectly nice, middle-aged men and women happy to have your help filing, copying, and answering phones. You traded one brand of misery for another and proved the point about geographic moves: wherever you go, there you are.
Nine weeks was not a long time. I used to wish I could go back and convince you to persevere. Convince you to say to hell with comparing yourself to others. To hell with worrying if your body was bikini ready. To hell with whether you had a boyfriend. To hell with Marlee and her skinny jeans. I’d tell you to jump into that Hitchcock film class you loved. To dig deep into the British literature class you found inspiring. To muscle through the tedium of U.S. History. But, ultimately, sticking it out was not your path.
These untold gifts could only come from your journey and struggle. Being accepted to a Cal State school, paying tuition on your own, and finally getting your degree would not have been as sweet if you had not wasted two years in community college and been rejected by three prestigious universities. Your recovery from bulimia and compulsive overeating would have been long in coming if you hadn’t been home with family. And you would not have discovered your love of writing in those poetry seminars and creative writing workshops. In the end, you not only accepted the consequences of your choice, but you also rose to meet and overcome them. For all the heartache and regret I carried for this time in your life, I know it was essential in your becoming the strong, independent woman you are now. Your path has been loopy, but it has enriched your life in ways unimaginable.
-Trish Cantillon
Los Angeles based writer and native Angeleno, Trish Cantillon has published personal essays on Brevity, The Fix, Refinery 29’s “Take Back the Beach,” The Manifest Station, The Refresh, Storgy, Brain Child Magazine Blog, and Ravishly. Her fiction has appeared in Gold Man Review and Berkeley Fiction Review. She works for Dream Foundation, the first and only national organization providing end-of-life dreams to terminally ill adults.